Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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The new Cantons are: Ticino, Valais, St. Gall, Aargau, Thurgau, Grisons,
Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel. They were formerly dependent on, and
protected by, or freely associated with, the Thirteen Can
§ 60. WILLIAM FAREL (1489–1565).
Letters of Farel and to Farel in HERMINJARD, beginning with vol. I.
193, and in the Strassburg edition of Calvin’s correspondence,
Opera, X.–XX.
Biographies by BEZA (Icones, 1580, with a picture); MELCHIOR
ADAM (Decades duae, 57–61); *KIRCHHOFER (1833, 2 vols.);
VERHEIDEN (Imagines et Elogia, 1725, p. 86 sq., with picture);
CHENEVIÈRE (1835); JUNOD (1865). MERLE D’AUBIGNÉ gives a
very minute but broken account of Farel’s earlier labors, especially
in Geneva (vols. III., IV., V., books 5, 6, and 9) . See also
RUCHAT, F. GODET, and other works mentioned in § 58, and art.
“Farel” in La France Protestante, tome VI. 886–416 (1888).
Two years after the political emancipation of Geneva from the yoke of
Savoy, Bern embraced the Protestant Reformation (1528), and at once
exerted her political and moral influence for the introduction of the new
religion into the neighboring French territory over which she had acquired
control. She found three evangelists ready for this work,—one a native of
Vaud, and two fugitive Frenchmen. The city of Freiburg, the Duke of
Savoy, Charles V., and the pope endeavored to prevent the progress of
heresy, but in vain.
The pioneer of Protestantism in Western Switzerland is William Farel. He
was a travelling evangelist, always in motion, incessant in labors, a man full
of faith and fire, as bold and fearless as Luther and far more radical, but
without his genius. He is called the Elijah of the French Reformation, and
“the scourge of the priests.” Once an ardent papist, he became as ardent a
Protestant, and looked hereafter only at the dark side, the prevailing
corruptions and abuses of Romanism. He hated the pope as the veritable
Antichrist, the mass as idolatry, pictures and relics as heathen idols which
must be destroyed like the idols of the Canaanites. Without a regular
ordination, he felt himself divinely called, like a prophet of old, to break
down idolatry and to clear the way for the spiritual worship of God
according to his own revealed word. He was a born fighter; he came, not
to bring peace, but the sword. He had to deal with priests who carried